Onshore Immigration Detention Centres are Rife With Abuses, Ombudsman Finds
During disturbances at Christmas Island’s North West Point Immigration Detention Centre early last year, staff were found to have engaged in using fire extinguishers and other firefighting equipment upon detainees. This use was unauthorised but appeared to be planned and...
Go to Hell Pell: CARR’s April on Protesting the Cardinal’s Funeral
Since Cardinal George Pell died of a cardiac arrest on 10 January, campaigners against institutional child sexual exploitation and abuse within the church have been tying coloured ribbons to the fence outside of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral in support of youths who...
Doomsday Clock at 90 Seconds to Midnight, Due to Unprecedented Dangers
This week the Doomsday Clock crept the closest it’s ever been to the end of days, as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the minute hand to 90 seconds to midnight on 24 January, with 12 am symbolising Armageddon....
The US-Australia Military Alliance Serves Washington’s Interests, Not Ours
This nation’s alliance with the US is often considered to guarantee Australian security. But the foundation of this strategic relationship, the 1951 ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) Treaty, provides no such assurance that Washington would step in to support us...
“Vote No to Referendum”, Say Grassroots First Nations, “We Deserve More than a Voice”
This 26 January marked 235 years since the British ships first docked at Kamay-Botany Bay with the intent of invading the continent today referred to as Australia, under the pretext of the doctrine of terra nullius, when clearly there were...
Enshrine Protest in Law as Our Future Depends on It: Shoebridge on Protecting the Right
Human Rights Watch began the year with the release of its World Report 2023, in which it critiqued the disproportionate punishment the NSW anti-protest regime, which was established last April, results in for those who partake in demonstrating “without permission”. Indeed, 2022...
Rejecting Your Strawman: Dr Kaz Ross on the Rising Sovereign Citizen Movement
About a fortnight ago, footage of a young woman from Victoria being pulled over by NSW police was doing the rounds online, due to the driver’s strange responses to officers’ questioning. When the police officer standing at the driver’s window asked...
The Belmarsh Tribunal: “In Short, Free Julian Assange, Without Further Unconscionable Delay.”
The Belmarsh Tribunal sat for the fourth time last Friday, 20 January, in Washington DC to discuss the global crackdown by state actors against journalists, sources and their publishers, with a focus on the extralegal attempt to extradite Julian Assange to...
Australia Again Misses Deadline on OPCAT, the UN Rights Treaty to Protect Detainees
Australia has again missed its deadline for implementing an international anti-torture protocol that the nation agreed to comply with in December 2017. The deadline, last Friday, 20 January 2023, was actually the third such deadline the country has missed in...
US Escalates Its Militarisation of Australia, Under Albanese
Foreign minister Penny Wong’s end of year trip to Beijing to meet with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi was hailed as an indication that the recently fraught relationship between the two nations was stabilising, especially in terms of the potential...
